i7-4770K Haswell Build

4 years ago I broke my own rule and bought a pre-built rig out of sheer speed and convenience. I have regretted that decision for 4 years. That little Acer mini tower is now sitting on a piece of cardboard (it's the X-3200 with the 9100e quad Phenom at 1.8) in pieces and working but dying and way to slow. I have started gaming again as well as doing a lot of encoding (HD) so I have decided to start a new build that will rip at encoding and allow me to play the latest FPS flawlessly. I have been out of the loop for 4 years so really have some research to do.

I am also a OC addict though I have not done that either in the last few years so I want this RIG able to OC very well.

If you want to have a very good OC better go for SB i7 2700K, i had mine (my previous build), rock solid 24/7 OCed to 5.0GHz, 1.40v combined with Asus M4E mobo and cooled with Swiftech H20-220 EDGE HD Series + Swiftech Helih 4x 120mm fans (very good and quiet), the temps never vent above the 77C (Prime 95, Linx64, IBT).

But if you want to stick with Haswell, you'll be able to OC it to approximately modest 4.4 - 4.5GHz (liquid cooled with H100, 100i, 110, Kraken x60 or similar), also you can paired it with a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H mobo (very good performance/price).

Indev, due largely to the IHS interface change the comparable Ivy and Haswell processors run much hotter than the previous generation Sandy Bridge processors.

From coolest to hottest; Sandy, Ivy, Haswell

Sandy Bridge IHS was affixed to the core via silver solder - a very good thermal transfer solution

Ivy and Haswell both use thermal paste - and it doesn't appear to be very good thermal paste at that

Clock for clock the Ivy is faster than the Sandy, and the Haswell is only marginally faster than the Ivy.

So, if you don't mind settling for a lower overclock and getting the latest technology go for Haswell. However, if you are looking for overclocks in the 4.6Ghz to 5.0Ghz range you'd have a better chance at success using a Sandy Bridge processor (just like Smiki said).

First off, the OP has the right idea, and I will get to his build in a sec.

The i7 2700K at 5.0 ghz at 1.4 volts is NOT a good model to follow for recommendations for a few reasons. 1) The 2700K is simply a slightly OCed 2600K without the on board video. You can easily save a bit of cash and go for the 2600K. 2) 5ghz is NOT that attainable on SB. It is a common enough overclock to hope to reach 5ghz, but it is far from a sure bet. 3) Haswell is faster than ivy which is faster than sandy. Sandy at 5ghz might only be the same as a haswell chip running at 4.7 or lower.

I am NOT saying that haswell is the right choice, but I would not say that a sandy bridge chip is the right choice either. Ivy bridge with sufficient cooling is probably the best system to go for right now. I might change my mind once there is a new stepping of the haswell chips.

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In any case, yes, the i7 3930K would be a great choice. It is indeed on the expensive side of things, but with 6 cores and 12 threads, encoding won't be an issue. I personally think it is overkill, but you do have quite a substantial budget, so maybe the overkill is not too out of place.

Video card: The price of the GTX 670 is starting to fall slowly but surely. If you can find two cards for SLI, then I think you will be happy.

PSU: The PSU is a tad on the overkill side (1050 watts), but it is an AWESOME deal. I just picked this up recently and I love it. 100% modular, gold rated, single 12v rail, and looks pretty darn good as well. It is 150 bucks after 30 dollar mail in rebate http://us.ncix.com/p...FX&promoid=1316

SSD: 256GB samsung 840 pro

HDD: Any capacity of seagate drive so long as it has their 1TB per platter tech in it. 1TB is ~70 bucks. I picked up a 2TB for 90 on sale.

Case: Anything you like, just be mindful for water cooling. You might want to take a loot at the switch 810 by NZXT.

Anything from that page is a great way to start out. All of those components are pretty darn good for a low price. The only thing I would add are comes monsoon compression fittings and maybe some colored tubing.

Great thanks I ws thinking of the Sabertooth rather than the Gigabyte board. I spent the last few hours reading reviews on both boards and the GB board seems to have some issues and has received quite a few mixed and bad reviews compares with the Asus board. Have you used that GB board?

Water cooling for Ivy and Haswell isn't worth it without removing the IHS IMO. The stock gap just kills thermal dissipation when overclocking.

Correct on the i7 2700K. (I seem to remember that there was a chip that they removed the video because the video did not work somehow.....any ideas which chip that was, because this is going to bother me)

Wrong on the water cooling. I am currently upgrading my mobo at the moment. Once my new board arrives in the mail, I will be happy to show you temp differences.

With air cooling (coming from the NH-D14) the temps would simply spike way up high, and that would be the end of the OC. With water cooling, the temps were a bit more stable and so long as you did not pass ~1.45 volts, the temps would not get too high too quickly. Even with lower OCs (1.25v @ 4.5ghz) The water cooling was about 10-15 degrees better than air cooling.